Here I will post some short pieces on Sarala Mahabharata. Sarala Das is known as the "aadikavi" (the first poet) of Oriya Literature. He lived and wrote in the 15th Century. Mahabharat is his magnum opus. The episodes in Sarala's Mahabharat are significantly different from those in Vyasa's (Sanskrit) Mahabharat.

Saturday, June 11, 2016

YOUR SAYING IS NOT ENOUGH,

Said the celebrated
sage Vyasa to Krishna, I need pramana
– pratyakshya pramana (direct
evidence); only then would I accept. That was when Krishna met Arjuna for the
first time. That was when in Sarala
Mahabharata Krishna entered
the story of the Kuru clan. Nakula and Sahadeva were not born yet. The story of
Madri posted in this blog on July 22, 2008 would give some idea of the context
of this meeting.

Krishna told Vyasa that
there was no time when he and Arjuna were not bound in strongest togetherness. In
Satya Yuga (the Aeon of Truth) Arjuna
was the brahmin named Shrivatsa and once he hit Narayana hard on his chest. Concerned
that he had in the process got hurt, Narayana had tenderly massaged his foot.
Since then the mark of his foot has been on his chest, Krishna told Vyasa. “Behold
the mark on me, O sage!” said Krishna. In the same aeon, when he manifested
himself as Narasingha (Nrusingha), Arjuna was born as Prahalada (Prahlada), “And
I,” said Krishna, “had sat him on my lap, O Vyasa!” In another aeon, when he
was born as Rama, said Krishna, Arjuna was born as his brother, Bharata, and in
the present aeon of Dwapara, “I have taken the avatara of Krishna and the same
Bharata is born as Arjuna, O sage!”

Vyasa knew the svarupa (true form) of Krishna; he knew
that he was Narayana Himself. The sage was not unaware that there could be no untruth
in the words of Narayana, but he still found it difficult to accept as true that
Arjuna, a mere mortal, could have been related to Him so very closely – as his sakha (intimate friend)— across aeons. Most
humbly, the great sage told Krishna that he had doubts and that he would
believe what he had said about Arjuna if the latter could withstand his Vishvarupa
or Cosmic Form. “So manifest yourself in your Vishvarupa!” he told Krishna (tu swami ehaku biswarupa dekha / ye jebe dekhi parai atai tora sakha –
you show your Vishvarupa to him / if he can withstand it, he is your intimate friend).
Vyasa knew that even the greatest of
gods, Brahma and Shankara, had not been able to do so. If Arjuna now did, then
he had to be someone very special. Krishna asked Arjuna what he wanted. The son
of Kunti said that he wanted Vyasadeva to be convinced, and he too wanted to witness
what this Universal Form was like, he added (kemanta ti biswarupa atai tohara / dekhibaku ichha deba atain mohara – what is your Vishvarupa like /
it is my desire to see (it)). The avatar obliged. Only he can see whom He
chooses to show.

In an instant, the
avatar’s friendly and cheerful form merged in his Source, the Supreme Divinity Narayana,
and Narayana’s form grew and grew. It encompassed the sky, the nether lands,
all the lokas, all the brahmandas (worlds / universes) and all
the existences. There was nothing left. In that all-embracing Form, the sun and
the moon were His eyes and the wind was His breath. All the gods rested in the
roots of the hair on His body, all the living beings on the palm of His left
hand, the mountains on His fingers and the oceans in the palm of His right hand.
His Form dazzled brilliantly, illuminated by the primordial fires.

Arjuna smiled the
silly, idiotic smile of a senile old man. Was he going to lose his existence
was what might have disoriented him. “O Supreme being,!” said Arjuna, “Will you
grow more? I have, at all times been a part of you. I have no existence outside
of your Form. Are you going to expand further and absorb me in you?” asked
Arjuna. “I am terrified,” he said.

Narayana had manifested
Himself in his Cosmic Form because Arjuna wanted to see Him thus. Now, seeing
Arjuna terrified, He assumed His avataric form as the serene, blissful, playful,
friendly Krishna.

All this is like in Shrimad Bhagavad Gita but here the
contextualization is different. And we must note that in this art of contextualization
lies Sarala’s originality as a creative re-teller of the ancient story.

Almost as in the Vyasa Mahabharata, in Sarala’s version
too there were two who witnessed the Vishvarupa: one saw because he wanted to,
the other saw, as the witness.There the
witness was Sanjaya; here, Vyasa himself. They were witness to the fact that
the one who wanted to see Narayana’s Vishvarupa indeed saw His Cosmic Form. However,
in the BhagavadGita, the most prominent aspect of the Universal Form was the
ultimate destructive energy. In the Sarala Mahabharata, because of the changed
context, this Form would have been inappropriate. Thus, here the most prominent
aspect of His Vishvarupa is His all-pervasiveness. It is reminiscent of what
mother Yashoda had witnessed in the mouth of Krishna. Both what Arjuna saw in
the BhagavadGita and what he sees in the Sarala
Mahabharata could be utterly terrifying. In the former case, the reasons are
obvious and in the latter, the experience could utterly confuse and disorient the
experiencer with respect to the nature of his own existence.

Now, there was yet another
blessed one in our mainstream puranic literature who had also seen the
all-pervasive Cosmic Form of Narayana. He was the celebrated king, Bali, and he
witnessed that Rupa (Form) at the
time of giving dana (ritual gift) to
the Vamana, the avatara Narayana had taken for him. The wise and the righteous Bali
was unafraid; he was calm and composed. There of course was no place in the story
for a scared Bali, but at the same time, part of the narrative purpose was
surely to foreground the great king’s enlightened self-possession on seeing
Narayana in that Form. That attitude showed how highly developed he was in
spiritual terms. We might recall what Narayana said in the Sarala Mahabharata - that for dana,
He would go to only the most virtuous among the highly virtuous.

As for Vyasa, he was
satisfied, as a true seeker after knowledge is when knowledge comes to him.
Arjuna had survived. Vyasa realized that he was no ordinary mortal. He told
Krishna that he had always thought that no one was related to Narayana, but now
he had realized that he was wrong. He blessed Arjuna for victory and left.

In the Sarala Mahabharata, this was how Arjuna
and Vyasa witnessed the Vishvarupa of the Supreme One. The avatar appeared in his
source Narayana’s various forms on other occasions, as he demonstrated his Narayanatva (“Narayana-ness”), one of
these being in the Kaurava court where he had gone as Yudhisthira’s emissary,
but Vishvarupa darshan did not figure in the narrative again.

There is more to
reflect on in this episode. For instance, how does Sarala implement the concept
in his narrative that Narayana is without relations? What does it really mean? It
is indeed necessary to know, so that we can understand the import of Vyasa’s
observation in this episode. Again, why did Vyasa want Krishna to prove to him
that what he had said about himself and Arjuna was correct? Wasn’t the statement
by the avatar who, Vyasa was aware, knew the past, present and future of
everything and of everyone including himself, sufficient? Consider it alongside
the question as to why in Shrimad
Bhagavad Gita Arjuna wanted to see that Form of Krishna which would embody
all the assertions Krishna had made about himself in the tenth chapter. Was it
for the same reason that Sarala’s Vyasa wanted evidence from Krishna – that is,
like him, did Arjuna in the BhagavadGita want pratyaksha pramana from Krishna, although his words and his
extremely reverential attitude to him in that sloka (3 of chapter 11) do not
explicitly express a demand for it? But at the same time, can such an
interpretation be ruled out? I hope to return to these matters in some other
posts.

Just one reflection as
we conclude. In the Vyasa Mahabharata Sanjaya could see the Vishvarupa because
he had received from sage Vyasa the special power to see all that was happening
on the battlefield of Kurukshetra from wherever he was. Arjuna could see the Vishvarupa
because Krishna had given him the special power to see: divyam dadami te cakshuh /
pasya me yogam aisvaram (“I am giving you divine sight/ Behold my sovereign
yoga” as translated by Ramesh Menon, sloka 8, chapter 11). Krishna gave the
divine sight, so Arjuna saw what Krishna wanted him to see. Krishna had given
Belalsen (his name in Sarala’s version, Barbareek in others) divine sight and
he saw what Krishna had wanted him to see. The one who imparts the ability to
see controls what is to be seen.

In the Sarala Mahabharata, Arjuna had not been
given divine sight to witness Narayana’s Vishvarupa. Our submission is: did he
need it? Who was he in this narrative? When they met, Krishna sat him on his
lap and named him “Diti Krishna”
(“Second Krishna”). Before he left his mortal form, he withdrew from Arjuna a kala (attribute / aspect) of himself
which he had given him, as he had to return complete to his Source (cf. “Krishna’s
Last Deceit” posted on July 13, 2007. With that attribute, Arjuna carried Krishnatva (“Krishna-ness”) in him. Now,
when did Krishna give that kala?
Logic and intuition suggest that he did it when he sat him on his lap. Could
this be Sarala’s way of suggesting this: jahun
Arjunaku kole dhaile shripati / swarupa
baarana nohila duhinkara eka murti (When Shripati – Krishna – sat Arjuna on
his lap / They could not be distinguished, they both had the same appearance)?

Viewed thus, isn’t Arjuna’s
beholding of the Vishvarupa like the beholder and the one who is beheld not
separate? Had Vyasa known that Krishna had given a bit of himself to Arjuna,
would he have asked the avatara for pratyakshya
pramana?

(This post has
benefited from observations of Pradip Bhattacharya, Vineet Chaitanya,Vikas
Kumar and Christa Scheler. Pradip Bhattacharya’s editing has improved the readability
of the text. My gratitude to them all.)